WASHINGTON – Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, U.S. Senators Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) today urged the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to swiftly approve the State of Illinois’ 1115(a) Medicaid waiver request, so the state can expand access to essential health services for nearly 800,000 people and have the flexibility to deliver quality care amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Specifically, the 1115(a) demonstration waiver would…remove financial barriers to patients for treatment…and deliver targeted strategies to reduce the risk of COVID-19 transmission for the most at-risk populations,” the Senators wrote in a letter to CMS Administrator Seema Verma. “This 1115(a) waiver will ensure Illinois can properly confront this challenge, and we urge CMS to move expeditiously to approve this waiver for Illinois.”
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The 1115(a) Medicaid waiver request submitted by the State of Illinois would build upon the diagnostic coverage provisions in the Families First Coronavirus Response Act to provide coverage at no cost to uninsured patients for COVID-19 treatment, and eliminate out-of-pocket costs for insured patients through secondary payer coverage. The waiver would also address social determinants of health for the most at-risk populations, including by providing temporary housing for individuals experiencing homelessness for the period of quarantine, allowing health services provided on-site to inmates to be reimbursed, and supporting home-delivered meals for low-income beneficiaries in quarantine. Illinois’s 1115(a) request also supports accelerated enrollment, including through expanded presumptive eligibility, extended deadlines for eligibility redetermination, self-attestation of immigration and citizenship status, and easing asset tests for patients in nursing facilities.
